Do you have what it takes to ace the thundering test that awaits you? Battle your way through the Storm Deckathalon tower to test your TC-slinging skills, rise up the leaderboard ranks, and win exclusive prizes like the Storm Class Pet! Professor Balestrom is waiting at the top as well...

As you ascend, you’ll unlock recipes to craft upgradeable decks that will aid you in your Deckathalon adventures. Can you make it to the top of the tower to unlock the recipe for the all-powerful Hands of Fate?

While you’re fighting your way up the tower, you’ll also earn points that will fill up your individual progress bar. As that progress bar fills up, you’ll receive bonus rewards! If you complete the individual progress bar, you’ll earn yourself the adorable Storm Class Pet.

Check out the official Events Calendar for updates.

Hey folks,



So many things have happened since last summer! First, we have an investor, a huge one. The game has changed visually, as you can see below or on the video devlog here:. The visual shift from 3D-with-2D-pixel-art to full 3D art is a bit of work, and consequently the team grew from 4-5 to roughly 30 people. But maybe, before we dive into the visual changes in Nimoyd, let’s talk about last summer, because that’s where all that new jazz and magic has its roots.







Last Summer

Summer 2021 was interesting, firstly because many of you played the pre-alpha demo at the Steam Next Festival back then. We had a decent success with our demo, with a few thousand users wishlisting us on a single day. I believe that Steam wishlists are overrated, but it is a neat indicator of player’s interest, right? In addition, we received over a thousand comments, emails, and questions in just a few days, with not only bug reports (thanks for the patience, by the way) but also ideas and suggestions on how to improve our little game here.

As you can probably imagine, those weeks were exciting. And, at the same time, I was making several calls with dozens of investors and publishers. Yes: on top of bug fixing and talking to you on Discord, Facebook, Reddit, or Twitter, let’s not forget: we kept working on our game. If you recall, beginning in early 2021 roughly 40 investors and publishers—from all sizes, from tiny to huge—had shown an interest in Nimoyd. And their interest culminated in summer 2021, when they finally got their chance to play the game alongside all of you.

By the way, those investor talks were the reason why I couldn’t share much with you for a few months, because I did not know how the game might change: every investor and publisher had their own ideas on how Nimoyd should progress. Quite literally. Western publishers, for instance, do not care about the mobile industry, but have at times very strong opinions and “wishes” on how a game should be. Meanwhile, non-publishing investors, especially non-Western investors, appreciate a bigger mobile focus and do not intervene in the production or game design at all.

In the end, I decided to team up with the biggest investor, who is not a publisher, largely because we instantly “clicked”, so to speak. Especially, I felt that they understood quickly what I am aiming at, what a sandbox game is, what we are trying to achieve here (even when we were just a team of 4-5 back then!). And, well, let’s say that their size and level of professionalism felt good too—even though I have now learnt that a huge investor requires an extensive and time-consuming due diligence and legal process that has spread across multiple months, yep.





Visual Changes

So, how come we changed a 3D-with-2D-pixel-art game (catchy term) into a full 3D game? There is a story to that, and it was not an easy decision, as you can imagine. If I recall correctly, not many games have switched from 2D to 3D before release. If you do it at all, you usually do it after release, right? If you feel that the game’s a success. But before release, where you cannot even tell if the game will be cool to play?

We were discussing the upcoming features of Nimoyd, like multiplayer and mobile support, which we had wanted to support anyway, as you know, and I was asked what else I would like to do. I suppose, thinking back, that they imagined more animation, or maybe more story, but I said: ‘Well, what if we remove all pixel art and replace it with full 3D?’ I still remember the look on their faces (in Zoom, of course) and so I had to explain myself: show how the game engine works, how to do it. Because I felt that, although pixel art is great, it caused us so many issues: especially in animation, combat, and customization.

Nimoyd was previously 3D already, it’s just that we tried to make the game look as if it was 2D. Of course, as soon as you turned the camera, you understood that it is a 3D game, just with 2D billboards and 2D player characters in a 3D voxel terrain game. What that meant was that all 2D characters, trees, rocks…everything were actually a 3D object with a 3D collider (yes, no 2D colliders) in 3D space. What started as an interesting workaround when I stumbled into it for the first time across this mix of 2D-with-3D, edned up proving to be an issue regarding combat feel (rotating items), collision detection, weird looking character moments and growing animation expenses—because if you have 16 heroes with 1000+ items, you can only generalize and abstract those items so much, right?

It still took us multiple months of testing, prototyping, and concepting before I was absolutely sure that we could switch to full 3D. After all, ditching all 2D anims, assets, and pixel art UI is not only time-consuming but expensive. You are not only throwing away old assets, though admittedly we were back then a small team, you need to recreate all assets and more in full 3D, with an entirely new team of 3D designers and animators. However, by now, after we’ve tackled all kinds of asset types, I am very happy about the change. The game feels so much better, and certain parts are so much easier to code—literally. 2D item rotation or animation in a 3D voxel engine game is not cool, nor cool looking, when you have 16 hero characters.



Challenges

So, what else was a challenge? Now that it’s done, it is easy to talk about a new art style, but working under time pressure on a completely new art style for UI, 3D creatures, NPCs, etc., gave some team members extra chills and added to the stress of that important time period.

Interestingly, the UI proved to be less of an issue because, in the meantime, we had established a new style guide, so when we started to remove the pixel art UI parts the rest made sense quickly—though it is an ongoing process, and not all screens are done yet because we took the opportunity to improve certain UI screens at the same time. The NPC concepts worked out pretty nicely too. I was aiming specifically for a painted, kind-of-Blizzard-like texturing, without adding as many details to the characters as Diablo 3 does it, in comparison. The buildings and many obstacles like trees and stones also were fairly easy.

The most difficult redesign was the creatures, though. Not only did we have an interesting mix of creature designs before, but keeping the creatures friendly and cute-yet-not-too-cute was an interesting challenge—and those did undergo a few iterations before they finally made sense to us. And, we hope, to you as well.

Another concept that worked beautifully in pixel art was the buildings. Buildings are still in progress, for a few reasons—including how building, farming, etc., have become more interesting now—, but the challenging part here is to make those buildings fit our creatures, trees, and player characters too.



Gameplay

I will talk more in detail about the gameplay improvements in the following months. However, I could share a few insights already. First off, yes, the game will be multiplayer (it is multiplayer already; not perfect yet, sure, but it is fine). Secondly, we plan a mobile release. I will talk about this in a few months but I plan to release the game both on PC and mobile at the same time, think Genshin Impact or, uh, Minecraft? Basically, I imagine us building some stuff on PC—only then to pick up Nimoyd on your phone in your bed, or on your sofa, to play it with your friends on mobile. Or something like that, but you are getting the idea.

A few bigger changes orbit around the survival and sandbox genre. Yes, the game is still a sandbox, an obviously pretty big one, but I grew a little tired of survival games recently. I mean, so many survival games came out in recent years, right? Therefore, I’ve rearranged some parts of the game design to the better, and to make the game more unique in the long term, since we plan to work on this game for multiple years after the release—yes, it is that type of game.

In this regard, there are a few exciting gameplay and game design changes which make Nimoyd more unique and special but I’d say: let’s talk about those in a few months—with actual gameplay footage.



Release

With such big visual changes in the making, what about the release then? I believe that the release will be either late 2022 or early 2023, depending a little on our investor. Even though we have total creative freedom here, you never know how the next 12 months may develop. And, as mentioned, PC and mobile; or PC first, depending on how it goes.

I also want to say that the past months were not only exciting, but that I am very proud of our team. It is to me astonishing what we have achieved so far: self-funded, from a tiny team (it started with just the two of us), which then grew to 4-5 team members in 2021, to now a team of 30 in 2022? That’s something for sure. Growing to such a team size is not without a risk, but I have to say that, so far, we’re doing great, and the game feels better and better every day.

Talk to you soon! I plan to do devlogs either every 4 or 8 weeks, we’ll see!

Cheers, Rafael :)

---

http://discord.gg/nimoyd
http://nimoyd.com
http://twitter.com/nimoydgame
http://facebook.com/nimoyd
http://youtube.com/c/nimoyd

• Bugs
  
  • Fixed a boss monster pathfinding issue that prevented a 2nd large enemy from attacking in melee.
    
  • Fixed the fallen paladin carrying Skullcrusher so you can't get it more than once, or crash your game by accident.
    
  • Fixed the Corrosion spell's FX.
    
  • Using the Rainbow Orb in combat now has the correct FX displaying.
    
  • Finding rations in treasure chests no longer prompts for player selection.
    
  • You can no longer discard artifacts while going through a treasure chest post-battle and choosing to swap.
    
  • Removed "Trade" option for single character parties with treasure chests in combat.
    
  • Sleeping characters can no longer open chests after combat.
    
  • Tweaked monster sorcery skill up a bit across the board; an earlier bug masked the low values.
    
  • The strange scepter now disappears from your inventory as intended when placed in Remzak's altar.
    
  • Grammar/spelling corrections.
• Features
  
  • Game reload is now available in combat mode.
    
  • Seven new spells, added to existing spellbooks and also available to monsters:
    
    • Firebeam, shoots a blast of fire in a line from caster.
      
    • Kismet, reduces monster spawn interval.
      
    • Iceball, cold damage in a ball.
      
    • Mark, marks current location for homing stone.
      
    • Mass Ward, casts ward on entire party.
      
    • Mindblast, large cone of mental damage from caster.
      
    • Restore, restores health and stamina to target. If cast on self, stamina penalized.
  • Magic Blade now has a unique sound effect that is the same in both travel and combat.
    
  • Pathfinding optimization and fixes to reduce odd behavior like running away from targets.
    
  • Some boss monsters are now guaranteed to drop random rare items.
    
  • New monsters added, two new fiends and "Drakvir", dragon-like men in four varieties.
    
  • Added specific monster abilities "berzerk", "regeneration", and "strength" that is self-targeted only.
    
  • When the active character has no lockpicks, it now says "{active character} has no lockpick!"
    
  • When the active character has no trap tools, it now says "{active character} has no tool!"
    
  • The Radiant Pharos has extra abilities:
    
    • It now reveals all secrets and dangers for all party members.
      
    • All traps are 100% discoverable in its light.
  • Wands no longer deal piercing damage, and damage has been altered to low base/high range instead of vice-versa.
    
  • Weapons with special effect properties now deal both damage and the special effect.
    
    • If you equip a trinket and a weapon with special weapon effects, the trinket takes precedence.
  • You can now examine equipped items.
    
  • You can now equip items swapping out current item in slot.
    
    • Combinations like 1H to 2H that would require two slots are rejected, you need to remove them manually.
  • Tools, light sources, and artifacts now have descriptions when examined.
    
  • Examining a spellbook will prompt you to equip it and view the spell list on the statistic screens.
    
  • You can now examine items in shops, as well as items you're selling.
    
  • When having a round of drinks at a pub, you are now prompted if you want to stay and hear more (at no additional cost).
    
  • The mountain region between Fort Granros and Bleyloch is now known as the Blackcrag Pass.
    
    • In-game text has been updated to refer to this name.
  • Bramimir now considers two quests in the Savage Isles as worthy deeds that earn her companionship.
    
  • A road and bridge now crosses the river near Port Bonifice.
    
  • Attempting to leave the pirate hut now triggers the quest encounter with the pirate captain. (Only on new games.)
    
  • Herbal Remedy is now available in the Ispahan Bazaar.
    
  • You can now sell items at the Ispahan Bazaar.
    
  • Zeke's Tools in Weymoor now buys back a lot more variety of items.
    
  • Clogs and Crafts in Bleyloch now buys items.
    
  • McDonnall's Merchantile in Port Bonifice now buys items.
    
  • PDF of the deluxe map now included in the Docs folder.

Hi ! Long time no see, I hope you are all doing great ! Finally it is time to release new map !



Never would I have assumed this would take this long, but basically this is the follow up of things that started back in 2019 with a trip to USA to make photogrammetry assets from real world trails. So here we are. This map is made using my rock assets taken from trip to MOAB.

This was quite tedious process that I thought would be much easier to implement. But with few things that were updated to main game engine it became reality. With features as seamless blending with terrain and continuous tire marks on trails. On top of that every rock has per poly collision giving you the best possible interaction between tires and environment.



Traversing through the new environment, you will encounter "challenge boards". There you can activate challenges you want to take part in. If you choose not to take any it will play out as free roam. This system gives the best of two worlds, giving you choice.

There are 3 types of challenges as of right now:

• Classic Rock Crawling - Mode that you know from old levels. Ride between gates, trying not to touch any cones.
  
• Path Finder - Objective points are marked on the map, get to them as quickly as possible. If not finished you will be rewarded partially.
  
• Follow the point - Slower than others, and requiring more precision. Try to stay as close to the marked location as possible while it moves around the map.

I hope you will have fun completing these challenges.



Update list:

• new map
  
• mini map on new map
  
• new challenges system
  
• improved vehicle handling
  
• improved low range
  
• wheel axis invert option
  
• added engine drag

As always, thanks to everybody posting on the forums, letting me know about the problems and suggestions.

Stay tuned for future updates ! Pure Rock Crawling is still under active development ! Take care !

Hint String No Longer using Controller Input By Default
Corrected SOME Spelling's In Tutorial Level
Search Session Server name Should Now be Showing Session Name you Choose
Optimized Level Perks For Co op
Removed testing souls on the floor in challenge arena
Fixed a Clipping issue in Challenge map Where you could Jump Over Unopened doors

We’re back at it again with another patch! Thank you to everyone who has sent us reports to help us find these problems. Remember, if you find something wrong with the game, you can let us know by using the “Bug Report” button in the settings menu :)

- Fixed bug that caused the game to softlock if you enter the robot designer while the sidebar is open
- Fixed bug that let you rate Level World levels more than once
- Removed ability to resize the game window using your cursor due to bugs appearing
- Stopped the circuit board and power core messages appearing during Level World levels
- Minor bug fixes

New Dialogue UI and more Blacksmithing options
- Improved dialogue UI with an angled close up and depth of field blurring to make dialogues feel more personal, in preparation for the upcoming social interaction features.
- Added a return button that allows the player to go back to the first row of dialogue choices, so that the players does not have to close the entire dialogue and interact with the NPC again.
- Added the ability for villagers to only smelt bars and the ability to ask nearby villagers to work as blacksmiths.

Changes:
- Workbenches reduced in size to prevent engineers from standing on top of them.

Fixes:
- Previously ransomed villagers having duplicates after relogging.
- Spamming the hire villager button could hire more villagers above the max population.
- Blacksmithing villagers were making copper tools out of tin ores.
- Villagers having the wrong images assigned to their slots in people summary and stats.
- An opened inventory with an item quantity popup window did not close during tax time, which allowed duplicated items to be transferred into a player's belt.

Hello Adventurers,

We are constantly reviewing players’ experiences and we have found some areas we can improve. These are some smaller changes we are able to make prior to our next major update, which we will be releasing with further QOL improvements based on the feedback from the Community!

• Extra shards in all quest rewards.
  
• Extra shards will now drop from chests.
  
• The cost to speed up Follower missions/crafting has changed from 30 to 20 Gems per hour.
  
• The cost to speed up Minion missions to open Chests has also changed from 30 to 20 Gems per hour.
  
• Added extra crystal rewards in Follower side quests – basically every second quest or better.
  
• Chest-rarity drop rates have been changed in all game modes. More Ruby and Diamond chests, fewer Wooden Chests.
  
• Lots of minor tweaks to chest drops. Mainly more items used for evolving Gear and Spells (eg. Scrolls, Runes, Relics) from dungeon chests & more shards from skirmish chests.
  
• The difficulty of Dungeons at the end of Quests early in-game has been eased.
  
• Dungeons and Skirmish battles in the Battle tab have had a difficulty reduction on Easy or Medium.
  
• Chapter 15 now gives a Legendary Bloodfang Shield.
  
• Lots of minor changes to shop packs. Mainly increasing stock & making Keys and superior Shards cheaper.
  
• Daily Deals have had some weighting adjustments & extra crystals added.

We have completed our first month in Steam Early Access!
Thank you for being on this journey with us, we look forward to all the adventures to come.

• Enemy "Lizzy" got a visual update (model, texture, thanks 2 Alex).
  
• Match end leaderboard: Now it is visible for all players in the match, what rank and highscore they have before and after the finished match. A new highscore of the player is now better visualized.
  
• Lobby: The chat history is now also shown to players who join the lobby later. So you can also leave messages for players joining later if you are away for a short time.
  
• Menu: Improved navigation with keyboard and gamepad in the menu. Character rotation in the skin menu also with gamepad.
  
• Bugfix: The metal target in Map Hangar makes strange movements.

See description in last major update and announcements:

• The last major update
  
• Announcement on how REFS is doing in general.
  
• List of all updates

If you want to be a part of our small community of players and fans, visit us in Discord. If you don't own the game yet, you can easily get a demo/playtest key in Discord 24/7 from key-bot. Go to our Discord here.

Stay tuned for the next updates and feel free to keep giving feedback, bug reports and your wishes and ideas.
Thank you very much! And stay healthy!

Greetings,
Sebastian aka. TheFlow aka. GameDevDude

-Fixed a game freeze in the desert with a map Interaction.
-Fixed a game freeze vs the vultures in the desert.

Thank you everyone for reporting any issues encountered and please continue to do so.